F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

The word Pike entered Dane through the ownership nail.

Heat spread into the wood around it while Grib read from beyond the rear wall.

”Pike Unit contaminated asset response.”

The cured resin along Dane’s split hinge tightened.

”Mercy category persists after feed.”

His lockplate cramped at the third line, outside recovery interest marked. The fourth line, recommend Core attention before guild returns, drove the nail deeper into his side.

The old counting niche shared the wall with him. Copper pipes crossed its ceiling, carrying Brackenvault’s smaller failures in distinct voices: a loose hinge knocked twice, rat surplus rattled, and someone in a lower room rang the stolen-bracket pipe without mercy. Grib’s claws ticked against his wax tablet beneath them. A stool groaned when Kett shifted closer to the Registry frame.

”Rear-wall paper crooked,” Grib added. ”Probable human fraud.”

Kett’s pen stopped. ”The material report has four lines. If you add your paper grievance, put your name under it.”

Grib rubbed one claw across the tablet. The extra cut went quiet.

Something wet touched wax.

A wax thread worked through the four scored lines, entered Dane’s property tag, and pulled. The ownership nail cinched. Resin channels carried the pull to his rim and lockplate, then down the cut in his tongue. Brackenvault repeated its evidence inside him as sensation: the ward crystal’s cold recoil around a false print, his lid straining below Brant’s hook, rat grease passing his rear teeth, and the mercy deviation still warm after the feed.

Grib clicked his claws at the first impression. ”Romantic contamination. Soft mage gets close; asset spoils its bite.”

”Strike romantic,” Kett said. His pen moved again, slower. ”The evidence cannot separate grief, panic, mana resonance, or uncertainty. Record the response as reactive.”

The Registry released Vera’s stored voice.

Nobody kills him yet.

Hunger raised Dane’s lid a fraction on the last word. The tiny creak crossed the wall.

”Response confirmed,” Kett said.

Grib began, ”Reactive signs sell—”

The rat-surplus pipe stopped rattling.

Every complaint overhead died with it. Copper cooled into silence. Grib’s claws ceased their restless tapping, and Kett’s stool gave one short complaint as he came upright.

The Core had noticed the report.

Cold divided inside Dane. One branch locked around the hinge that had resisted Vera’s proximity. Another pressed beneath his empty stomach and measured the standard feed he had spoiled. The last drove through his nail toward the guild seal and Tess’s hidden invitation, shuddering between the two claims until the wood hurt.

Kett spoke into the silence. ”Pike proximity suppresses ordinary feeding and increases route value. Her licensed seal makes destruction traceable. The recovery mark makes retention contested.”

The cold converged.

Vera’s refusal played again. Nobody kills him yet.

On yet, the ownership nail twisted.

Dane’s lid slammed open. Brass bands took the force across his back. His tongue lashed over the lockplate, and the old cut struck metal hard enough to fill his mouth with iron.

Empty air waited beyond Dane’s rim while Brackenvault supplied a victim through command.

Ozone and ward-hot copper entered through the resin paths. A pulse knocked exactly one bite beyond his rim. His tongue curled toward the imagined throat behind it, finding the soft turn beneath a jaw he had never touched. Every tooth settled into a closing track.

The next order would let him feel that phantom pulse stop.

Dane drove all 0.08% of his permanent Control into three damaged places at once. The split hinge ground against its crooked pin. His front rim fought the lift. His tongue flattened across the lockplate, trapping the organ that wanted to hook and drag.

His lid descended one finger-width.

The Core pulled upward. Torn wood fibers tightened under the brass. The tongue cut throbbed against metal. That single finger of spoiled gape held while the rest of his mouth strained to complete a murder with no victim.

Kett’s pen cut wax. ”Direct pressure produced one finger of denial through existing damage.”

Grib’s voice came tight from below the pipes. ”Stop the burn. It crosses Pike’s licensed wax. Treaty tracers can follow Core charge from her seal into this room.”

The cold withdrew.

Dane’s lid crashed shut. His teeth clapped on empty air. He pulled his tongue clear with less than a nail’s breadth to spare, then lay closed around the stale rat taste and what Brackenvault had learned: Vera’s voice could give his worst instinct a throat.

He tried to hear her refusal as human speech again. Her breath had been short, her anger aimed at the people ready to kill him. Before memory reached the final word, the nail supplied another phantom pulse and began curling his tongue; Dane cut the recollection short.

Lines pressed themselves through the property tag.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Core Attention Adjustment ]==\

| Asset: F-2 Storage Mimic Seventeen

| Trigger Class: Vera Pike / Mage Proximity

| Command Pressure: Low -> Moderate

| Approved Use: Deep Route Lure

| Public Route Risk: Reduce Exposure

\==[ Reposition Asset Before Guild Return ]==/

Moderate pressure remained beneath the nail. Even with the lid closed, his tongue lay forward and the split hinge held tension against the rim.

Kett’s pen scratched once beneath the decision. ”Bring six haulers. Four cannot keep the base level after a hook misses.”

Grib dragged a claw over the service-slit latch. ”The rollers stick, the rail needs scraping, and six empties my favor board. Premium was marketing; six backs are the lifting plan.”

Kett’s pen resumed.

”Pike will follow her seal,” Grib said.

”She will find an empty annex.”

Into the margin went one final sentence, its pressure settling under Dane’s tag.

Staff claim premature. Asset instability escalating.

Through the opening service slit, Grib’s claws hurried away while chains woke behind the stone.

Six sets of feet crowded the rear run. Their weights separated around the machinery while Grib assigned two to the roller brake, two to the chain wheel, and two to the hook bars. Iron shook dust from its track. A hauler near Dane’s left side asked whether the chest had fed.

”Once,” Grib said. ”That means it can open again. Hands stay behind the bar grips. If the lid moves, leave the iron and keep your fingers.”

The laborers changed their holds. Leather tightened. One pair tested the brake pawl while another walked slack out of the chain.

Grit caught the pawl halfway through its test. A heel struck the return arm once, then harder, before the iron seated.

”It will hang on release,” one of the brake pair said. ”Give me time to kick it clear.”

Moderate pressure tightened every hinge in Dane’s body while Grib listened to the rail. ”Call before it binds. Nobody reaches under the base to help it. We move on the next chain tooth.”

The hook-bar pair tested their grips against stone. One bar trembled fast enough to chatter. Grib moved that worker to the wheel and brought a steadier set of hands forward. During the swap, command pressure tightened against Dane’s rim.

Mortar cracked down the rear wall. Warning paper rasped against stone. Lime and old coin leaked from Tess’s hidden mark, followed by the cold pine pressure of Vera’s wax. The service slab withdrew far enough for the pipe air to reach Dane’s split hinge.

Hooks punched through two floor slots.

The first struck an under-base ring and held. The second scraped past metal, screamed along stone, and stopped beneath his damaged side.

”Back half a tooth,” Grib ordered. ”Keep the wheel still until it seats.”

The hook withdrew, shifted, and rammed through the second ring on his knock.

Chain tension lifted one corner before the other. Five shallow coppers ran through Dane’s front gutter. Deeper inside, the thin silver coin struck the square-holed coin; its red string dragged but stayed caught in the pocket behind them. Toma’s glove folded over its empty palm. Scarf cloth snagged on a tooth, and Nate’s return charm knocked against Saint Rust’s knife vessel.

The sword scraped once.

Dane’s tongue dropped over the loose keepsakes. Hunger welcomed the blood-stiff glove and tried to turn the motion inward. He forced the tip past it, pinned the five coppers against the back wall, and pulled the scarf clear of the closing seam. The part built to steal those remnants was the only part long enough to protect them.

”Left is rising first,” one of the wheel pair warned.

”Hold the brake,” Grib shouted.

The pawl came free after the caught side had already taken Dane’s weight. His base dropped two fingers onto iron.

The impact slammed his teeth together. Pain flashed along the old tongue cut, through the injured gum, and around the split hinge. No warm blood followed the iron taste. The six haulers breathed hard without releasing their bars.

On the next wheel turn, stone ground beneath Dane’s boards.

His threshold receded one brutal handspan at a time. Paper whispered behind him. Tess’s lime-and-coin mark lost its scent first. Vera’s three cold strokes pulled at his tag until the service seam passed beneath his base. The liability stroke cracked with a dry snap; its pressure vanished from the stone while Pike’s name remained caught in the Registry.

All three public warnings and the private recovery invitation stayed on the empty annex wall.

Dane entered the service hollow on hooks and rollers.

No honest warning went with him.